Related papers: Weak Homology of Bright Elliptical Galaxies
We start by studying a small set of objects characterized by photometric profiles that have been pointed out to deviate significantly from the standard R^{1/4} law. For these objects we confirm that a generic R^{1/n} law, with n a free…
The light profiles of elliptical (E) galaxies are known to display small systematic deviations (0.1-0.2 mag.) from the R^1/4 law. In this paper we show that the senses and amplitudes of these departures can be naturally accounted for by a…
Elliptical galaxies have been observed to cluster near a ribbon along a two-dimensional plane (the Fundamental Plane of Elliptical Galaxies) in the three dimensional space of effective radius, effective surface brightness and central…
A two-component isothermal equilibrium model is applied to reproduce basic structural properties of dynamically hot stellar systems immersed in their massive dark haloes. The origin of the fundamental plane relation for giant ellipticals is…
We present a study focusing on the nature of compact groups through the study of their elliptical galaxies. We determine velocity dispersions ($\sigma$) for 18 18 bright elliptical galaxies located in the core of Hickson compact groups and…
A review of the present observational and theoretical status of elliptical galaxies is presented with the aim to clarify whether the monolithic or the hierarchical, is a more viable scenario for the origin of these structures. We describe…
We perform numerical simulations of galaxy mergers between star-forming and gas-rich spirals in order to explore the origin of the Fundamental Plane (FP) of elliptical galaxies. We consider particularly that the origin of the slope of the…
Recent progress in the dynamical analysis of elliptical galaxy kinematics is reviewed. Results reported briefly include (i) the surprisingly uniform anisotropy structure of luminous ellipticals, (ii) their nearly flat (to $\sim 2R_e$)…
We present measurements of the Fundamental Plane (FP) parameters (the effective radius, the mean effective surface brightness, and the central velocity dispersion) of six field elliptical galaxies at intermediate redshift. The imaging is…
We analyze the fundamental plane projections of elliptical galaxies as a function of luminosity, using a sample of approximately 80,000 galaxies drawn from Data Release 4 (DR4) of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). We separate brightest…
Observations consistently show that elliptical galaxies follow a tight "fundamental plane" scaling relation between size, mean surface brightness and velocity dispersion, with the form $R \propto \sigma^{a}\mu^{b}$. This relation not only…
We use the Fundamental Plane of Elliptical Galaxies to constrain the so-called Hybrid Gravity, a modified theory of gravity where General Relativity is improved by further degrees of freedom of metric-affine Palatini formalism of $f(\cal…
The Fundamental Plane relates the structural properties of early-type galaxies such as its surface brightness and effective radius with its dynamics. The study of its evolution has therefore important implications for models of galaxy…
The last decade of research on elliptical galaxies has produced a wealth of new information concerning both their detailed structure and their global scaling relations. We review the old and new results about isophote shapes and…
Like early-type galaxies, also nearby galaxy clusters define a Fundamental Plane, a luminosity-radius, and a luminosity-velocity dispersion relations, whose physical origin is still unclear. By means of high resolution N--body simulations…
In hierarchical models of galaxy formation, ellipticals form from the merging of disk galaxies drawn together by gravity as their surrounding dark halos coalesce. Using semi-analytic techniques, we are able to follow the merging, star…
In this paper we explore several structural and dynamical effects on the projected velocity dispersion as possible causes of the fundamental plane (FP) tilt of elliptical galaxies. Specifically, we determine the size of the systematic trend…
We present an exploration of the mass structure of a sample of 12 strongly lensed massive, compact early-type galaxies at redshifts $z\sim0.6$ to provide further possible evidence for their inside-out growth. We obtain new ESI/Keck…
The Fundamental Plane (FP) is an empirical relation between the size, surface brightness, and velocity dispersion of early-type galaxies. This relation has been studied extensively for early-type galaxies in the local universe to constrain…
The physical origins of the Fundamental Plane (FP) scaling relations are investigated for early-type galaxies observed at optical and near-infrared wavelengths. The slope for the FP is shown to increase systematically with wavelength from…